Phannie

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Well, quite a lot has happened since I wrote the "Sidelined" post several months ago. Sandy spent the better part of a week in the hospital with some more health issues and has been on chemotherapy for a while. Meanwhile, we listed the house as a FSBO and sold it to our next-door neighbor, who had secretly admired the place and had designs on it for years. Meanwhile, the retirement place is under construction, so we've got to move to an apartment for a few months until it is finished.

We found it impossible to find what we wanted in a retirement home among existing housing, namely, a place in the DFW mid-cities area where zoning would allow an RV to be kept. Having looked for months for an existing house, we gave up and began to look for a lot on which to build. We found only two that were reasonably priced--these being in older, well-established neighborhoods that were built out before RVs became popular and, therefore, were not RV-restricted by zoning restrictions. The first lot was sold out from under us before we could make an offer, and we bought the second one on the same day the realtor's sign went up. Vacant lots are really sought after here in the mid-cities area; to get one, you just have to be in the right place at the right time. We felt really lucky to purchase this lot for what we thought was a bargain.

We have sold or given away an incredible amount of household stuff, but even so, we have filled a 10x30 rented storage unit with things we moved out of the house to make it look more spacious to prospective buyers. Now mind you, we haven't moved ANY furniture out of the house yet! This means we're going to have to rent a second storage unit! It is just ridiculous how much unnecessary junk we have collected. This constitutes a type of bondage that bothers me more and more the older I get. I'm hoping that a lot of this excess will be jettisoned during the two moves (big house to apartment and apartment to new house)that are coming up.

The lot we bought is relatively small, but the architect skillfully squeezed every square foot of house possible onto the lot, allowing for a 40x13 RV port alongside the north side elevation. And, because I detest yard work, this had the very desirable effect of reducing the yard area to a minimum. I'll have to scout around for some neighborhood kid to mow it, I guess, because I'm sure not going to do it.

I'm still dreaming of getting rid of the bondage that even this smaller house is going to pose. When Mindy gets out of college, I'm going to put the full court press on Sandy to try at least part-timing for a while. Who knows? Maybe she'll like it enough that we could pull the plug at some point.

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About Phannie and Mae - And Us

Mike retired as an airline pilot and manager in 1996 and retired again from a subsequent stint as a manager with the Federal Aviation Administration in 2013. Sandy is a retired public schoolteacher of gifted and talented children. This blog will take you from the the excitement and discoveries of our very first RV trip through the trials and tribulations of downsizing our lifestyle and grappling with the onrush of life's sunset years and our emergence, hopefully, with our dreams and our sanity intact. We hope you enjoy the journey with us. Phannie and Mae? We have always named our vehicles, I guess because we get attached to them. Our Phaeton Motorhome is Phannie, and our Honda CR-V toad is Mae. Phannie...Mae, like the giant federally sponsored mortgage corporation, Fannie Mae. Get it? Okay, maybe you don't; it is kinda silly.